Part 7.75: The Lost Fict

Memory Phases 2 and 3

In the DeviantArt version of these memory fragments, the accompanying illustration starts off pixelated, but becomes more complex as the memories progress. The chapter also still wears the title "Imaginary Friends", implying that there's some really big connotations to what happened at Delta Meadow. There would have to be.

These fragments also tie up a few gaps that have to do with Nephi, Scion, Secany - basically any and all who came to the Lost Fict.

I don't own Pokémon.


Secany

Memory Phase - 2

The sandy islet became clear again, mist permeating its sky and horizon. The gray-skinned woman was standing with her arms crossed, back to me, watching the headstone closely – well, not so much that but the hooded human sitting over it, his hands covering his face. Was he grieving? It looked like he had been in a lot of emotional pain – or physical? Was this woman here to comfort him?

"O Ravager," beckoned the winged woman – not so much winged as her wings were just purplish strips, torn and tarnished. "What ails you so? Is it that body? Pray worry not, for I would be none the wiser to leave you like this."

"My... Nephilim..." came a monstrous growl from the human's form. That voice couldn't have belonged to him. It was warped and chilling, rumbling like a rainstorm. That was Scion. "This vessel... cannot carry the weight... of the crosses... that I house."

I fought this thing before, the demented human-thing that gave me the Crossblade. It forced me to live its way. It forced Rayse to do the same. I wanted to scream at it, but I couldn't make a sound.

"So then, this world is yet young to the taste of the Cross' milk, and as such, you are weak," claimed the woman. "If I was to groom this world with the Cross, wouldst my lord Scion approve? Wouldst he carry himself the highest model for this world's future, in such a stead of hanging his dear head so low?"

"My obsequious Nephilim..." the human-shaped Scion shook, fingers clenching into his face. A glint of bright red pierced between two of his fingers. "Leave me... This is a puny world, and... I've little place. Not without Hypera's sculptor."

A moment passed the two by, devoid of speech. The gray woman turned about, dress kicking up in the breeze. A four-fingered hand over her chest, her eyes were eerily shut. That gloved hand was concealing something round across her bosom. A purple smile crept across her face.

"My father?" she asked, feigning coyness. "Are you nothing without him?"

As if it couldn't get any worse, the glint from the grave-sat monster's eye spoke a threat louder than words, but quieter than an action, as he remained dormant.

"You need not be embarrassed, you know," chirped his 'Nephilim'. "Prithee, what would I be were if not for you, my Storm; well, I stray from the point. What if I told you that my 'father' is here?"

"You jest."

"I do not," the woman answered, both hands folding at her waistline. I should have suspected as much, but the trinket above her breast was a small silver clock, a piece of a jeweled necklace. "My Lord Scion, in the time we have shared within this space, I have collected many things: memories, visions, a friend, and a very brief greeting with a girl who calls herself a time traveler. She has begun to pay our toll to a new world, so that we may go on our way as we once had. In that world, there will be a father. Yes, 'a' father of mine. I will spare him, so that you may... evaluate him, as you please."

"Spare him?" croaked the monster, intrigued. "You speak with such certitude."

"Naturally," the woman turned her head. "But I worry; what will you do when I set you free? You clearly have little power over me anymore. You can hardly bear a Crossblade. Oh, but it's no normal Cross. You bear the halos Sun and Moon, don't you? The Mors?"

No answer. Scion appeared to be in pain, back hunched and eyes hidden away.

"Aww, ah-huhuhu, even Chaos itself has bellyaches," the woman mused, charmed. "It's no wonder you cannot even stand. Your own power has become a weakness unmatched."

A gust of wind. A seizure of lights enveloped the woman's right arm. As the lights solidified into the composition of a sword, so too did they darken, leftover rays fusing with the blade, etching runes into it and giving it decoration. The woman hold her arm out straight, as to display the length of her sword – a weapon near as long as she was tall.

"That you can wield it and I cannot...!" the demon growled, bleeding envy from his breath.

"How did our story end? Do you remember?" asked the woman, maintaining her composure and her posture, sly and superior. "You won. You used Father's creations, and you won. Dearest congratulations. But now, I have... mmh, recreated you, and with Father's weapons worming inside of you. What fortune this 'Gamma' brings us."

She turned and walked to the headstone, her sword quietly tracing a line in the sand. She giggled.

"At long last, I can exact equality not just upon the world beneath us, but you, Scion," she hummed. "In my retelling of the story, I will dive into you and split you in trine. At last, you will be Naphal, too."

A flail of motion, the woman lunging ahead, before a spray of red and black plumed forth and covered the white fog, covering me, surrounding me and passing quick, colors fading until... it all went white again.


Memory Phase – 3

The light flare cleared. The gray-skinned woman, eyes still shut, was sitting atop a strange white surface – a strider, fallen and lifeless, the woman's signature sword thrust through what I assumed was the thing's face. It had been felled reaching out into the air, its assailant having expended no energy to do so. That was what I was getting from the way she sat, so lax and carefree, humming to herself, head turning to one of the glowing objects she was holding, then the other. They looked like weapons – like Symbis, but with more presence. I felt choked up just watching them. It sorta felt like I had my Crossblade out and at the ready, but without the pain and just the pressure teasing the pain.

In her right hand, she held a long, golden object, ornate with wings at its ends and decorated with a long string bending both of these ends. In her left hand, she held something akin to a scepter, translucent and dark. While the bow was light, this cross-shaped wand was light-hungry, dimming the very air around it, casting a gloom around the woman's hand. It did not bother her.

"Mmmmm..." she breathed, an illustration of serenity. Watching her 'decide' between the two was contagious. I found myself growing tranquil at the Hypereal woman's composure. With the way the strider was idly reaching up and with the sword lodged into its face, the woman appeared to be sitting upon a throne, as twisted as it all was.

Aza was there. The hooded human was still upon the headstone, albeit his head was low and he was as still as the fallen strider. Was he even breathing? Did he ever need to? Aza, on the other hand, was standing, leaned away from the woman and her prey, one paw lifted off the ground. He was anxious, communicating wariness in those long, low-hanging ears of his, high tail.

"Bugger me! I...!" Aza tried to object, offering little more than a nervous grunt. "I-I don't understand...!"

"Mm?" the woman mumbled, looking to my espeon brother. He set his paw down and avoided eye contact. Strange, I thought. Without eyes, she could see him, and he knew it. He was terrified of it. That clock over her breast... "Have you something to say, dear?"

'Dear'?

"Miss Nephi," he started, scared into respectful submission. "I-I-I... I wasn't – I mean, you... That creature – you... killed it. I-I thought—I thought I was... bringing it t-to you for, uhm, research, right?"

"We come from very different words, Aza," she answered without a moment spared. "My research and your research are like – mh-hmhm – night and day."

"Is that it? Oh. Right, right," Aza smiled, or tried, putting out a chuckle so cringe-worthy that I... well, I cringed. He was scared to death of this lady. "W-well, yours must be the night, since it's a lot... er, darker, than what I had in mind."

"Darker? Mmm, sweet boy, why so aloof? Come hither, would you?" she enticed him, putting on a rosy smile. I couldn't smell her intentions. Aza, however, crept up like a predator cautious of its game. Strangely enough, he didn't seem keen to play the part of the predator. "...Yes, take your time, I am certainly going nowhere."

"Sorry!" Aza stuttered, his creep turning to a clumsy trot, toppling in the sand until he was standing obediently within arms' reach of the woman, tall and formal as he could. "Here! I-I'm... I'm here now."

"In speaking of 'night'," said 'Miss Nephi', taking a stance and offering the gloomy scepter to Aza. He backed his head away from the shadowy object, at first startled, then confused, attempting to sniff the thing. "Pray take this wand."

"Um," Aza uttered, his tail swinging. "If you say so."

The sharply contrasting ruby at the espeon's forehead sparkled, fleeting red embers darting into the ominous object's own surface. It escaped Nephi's palm, drifting closer to Aza. With his power, Aza turned the trinket upright, beholding it with childish curiosity. The thing floated above him, easily made more imposing by its height over both himself and Nephi. Though I knew Aza was the one controlling it, it appeared alive, or as though it had a consciousness.

Fearfully beseeched by Nephi and her bizarre armory, she and Aza were, for all I knew, unaware of the large white, humanoid beast growing restless, animated. Its once frozen hand lurched for the blade thrust through its head. An awful, liquid sound cut through the air as it pulled the blade clean out of the unseen wound. Doing so, it lifted Nephi's sword high, speckles of white flung from its surface. Following this, it turned the weapon between its fingers with alarming dexterity, thrusting it instead down, into the sand, so that it may be used as a support to rise up. Rise up it did, and Nephi finally took notice through her closed eyes. Aza himself backed away, though not so much out of fear as cautious intrigue.

Nephi stroked her chin gently, the tall ghostly monster ripping the blade from the sand, wielded backwards. It looked like it sought vengeance. I could see no indication of a wound through its blank white face, or lack there OF a face – just big shoulders, broad arms and legs, no neck, and a rounded egg-like head.

"Be that so?" mused the roguish Hypereal to the strider. As infectiously relaxed as before, she turned, gown fanning out in the moment. With Aza's careful observation, she walked beside him, abandoning the strider, instead lifting a delicate hand over Aza's neck and tracing a long line over his back, all the way to his tail as she passed him by. Aza shuddered. The scepter in his psychic grasp shook with him. She stopped, one leg forward, a gloved hand still pinching the midsection of Aza's tail between two fingers. "For your studies, dear, I'll have you make a corpse of the thing. I would see it dead before you. Bludgeon it to a writhing pulp with that wand if you must."

"Y-you want me to beat this creature to death with this?!" Aza objected, the post-pinched part of his tail attempting to wiggle free.

"Verily." she quipped, parting from Aza, taking herself into the mist with that gilded stringed weapon.

"But what about you?" Brother queried, taking a couple steps back. "Miss Nephi? Where are you-?"

"Do not, dear, invite me to your concern. I yearn for the sound of waves." she said, vanishing altogether. She had left Aza to deal with the threat of the hostile strider. Abandoning negligence, the espeon threw a quick glance to the still human, hooded and silent. Had he hoped for some kind of help? Looking at the human, he seemed to be holding something golden and round in his two hands, cupped like a tiny pool of water. He was taken by it, as the strider had taken Nephi's sword.

A loud ring. A louder ring. A ring so loud that it shook the world and warped everything I had been watching, twisting it and turning it into a bedlam of sand and water.